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Aboard the Kekepi
Sunday, 9 May
1740 Local Time
Kanoa leaned against the rail of the Kekepi and allowed the sun to drive the chill from his bones and the nausea from his stomach. Neither the coldness in his body nor the queasiness in his gut had anything to do with the gentle rolling of the Kekepi’s deck. They had everything to do with the hours of news coverage he’d watched on the ship’s big-screen television.
The sun dropped toward the sea. Sunset was due at 2020—in less than three hours. Not long after that, Kimo would begin executing hostages with a hoe leiomano, a handheld, paddle-like club lined with shark’s teeth along both edges. Alapai would videotape the executions for posting on the internet.
The thought of the tourists dying gave Kanoa no heartache at all. However...
A lot of Hawaiians had died in the past few days—many more than he ever imagined in his wildest estimates. He had never doubted some of his own people would be sacrificed in the struggle to bring attention to their cause. Collateral damage, Mr. L called it. In the sterile environment of a planning session, the deaths could easily be justified. Rationalized.
Seeing limp bodies carried from rubble, hearing the interviews of stricken family members... that was not so easy to brush off.
So many. So very many.
“You have struck a great blow for freedom,” a voice behind him said.
Kanoa jerked, startled. He spun to find Mr. L. Somehow, the man had approached him across a steel deck in hard-soled shoes without Kanoa hearing a thing.
“I have killed many of my countrymen today,” Kanoa replied, then he added words that spilled from his heart without warning. “I wonder if it was worth it.”
“That is the freedom fighter’s conundrum, is it not?” Mr. L stepped up to the rail and clasped his hands over it as though praying to the sea. Small in stature, wearing a conservative black suit, the man always reminded Kanoa of a slimmer version of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. He spoke like a college professor, pushing his round glasses up the bridge of his nose. “We must somehow burn the overseers without harming the workers he enslaves. Consider this: your people will never be free until the United States government revokes its claim on your territories. Without provocation, the establishment will not act. Without pecuniary damage, the capitalists will not cede ownership.”
Kanoa hung his head. “I know this—”
“Then you know you had no choice but to strike at the heart of their greed—drive away the tourists, make the corporations beg for mercy, and make the cost of holding Hawaii to dear for them to accept. The Americans will fold. They always do. They have no stomach for sacrifice. Their progressives will demand reparations to the victims of the robber-baron ancestors in order to assuage their guilty consciences. Their people will weep on TV, and others will scream for fairness, as if such can be granted in a capitalist state.”
“My people weep on TV at the moment,” Kanoa said with a burst of fire behind his eyes. “And it tears my heart.”
“Of course it does.” Mr. L patted Kanoa on the shoulder. He had to reach high to do so. “But you must harden your heart.”
The wind off the ocean carried to Kanoa’s lips the taste of salt. His skin felt stiff, brittle. He swallowed with a dry throat and nodded without speaking. A sleek yacht zipped across the sea, throwing a sparkling bow wave. A short, muscular man observed them through binoculars as the smaller craft zipped past. Kanoa ducked his head.
“Listen to me.” Mr. L had turned his back to the rail and spoke away from him. “Our last strike will be devastating to the American military. Your casualties will be justified.”
Kanoa frowned. “When we blow the charges...”
“True,” Mr. L conceded. “A horrible event. But necessary.”
“I don’t know...”
“But I do.” Mr. L straightened and walked toward the nearest hatch. Kanoa noted that his footsteps were almost silent. Had he not been paying attention, he would never have heard them. The Asian man glanced back. “Now is not the time for cold feet, my friend. Come. We need to get a status report from our shore team. It will not be long before they return.”
Kanoa hesitated only a second before following the tiny man in the dark suit.
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
1756 Local
“Soldiers are pouring out of their barracks,” Montelle reported from his place at the window. He teetered, and the cot creaked and wobbled under him. “They’re spreading out into the woods.”
Charlie jumped up and tapped the singer on the leg. “Let me see.”
When she chinned up to the high window, Charlie saw the last of the contingent of Asian troops scattering into the forest. They were dressed for combat in full “battle-rattle,” as Abel called it, and carrying military rifles—Abel got annoyed when she used the erroneous term assault rifle—and each hefted a small rucksack on his back. The impression she gained was that the soldiers were not coming back to their barracks.
The soldiers vanished into the foliage, and the camp went quiet.
It was a very oblique angle, but she could just make out the front door of the command hut. When it banged open, Charlie put her cheek against the boards and craned for a look. Her bladder twitched when Kong stepped out. The man had grown larger since she’d last seen him—at least, that was her gut reaction.
“I’ve ridden in smaller SUVs,” she said under her breath.
When he stomped toward their barracks, Charlie scrambled off her perch and hissed a warning. The tension in the sweltering cabin hit like a wave of fresh sweat as people shifted and exchanged worried looks. Melissa and Austin held hands, Dave Draper and Ed Collins stood up to face the door, and Betty Pyle crossed to the adjacent cot and pulled a visibly trembling Sarah Rae Draper to her bosom.
The lock rattled, then their tormentor filled the doorway.
If all of us rush him at once, right now...
The thought died the moment it was born. Not only was it problematic that all the able-bodied people in the hut could make a dent in the block of granite in the doorway, but they also had a forest full of armed men to contend with. They would all be shot to ribbons before they made it a hundred yards.
The warm sweat on her body turned to ice as the giant stepped in and surveyed the group. His narrow, puffy eyes lingered on the women.
“What do you want?” Dave Draper marched forward. His short, pudgy body contrasted with the monster at the door like a mouse approaching a tiger. “You’re not touching another—”
Smack!
Charlie jumped. The man’s hand had moved faster than her eye could follow. The backstroke caught Draper alongside his head and sent him reeling into a cot occupied by the German tourist, Schweighofer. Both crashed to the floor as the German tried to catch the congressman.
Kong pointed. “You. Come with me.”
“No!” Melissa shrieked.
An ugly sense of relief flowed through Charlie when that sausage-sized finger pointed at Melissa. A pang of shame at her own cowardice followed. She pushed the nail in her hand to poke out between her fingers. Maybe, if she could hit him in the eye...?
Austin stood as Kong approached. “Wait, wait, wait. We can talk about this.” He held up a hand like a traffic cop, and the giant caught his wrist and twisted. The bones in Austin’s arms shattered with a sound like gristle crackling. He screamed and went to one knee.
The monster kicked him aside and reached for Melissa, who squealed and shrank into a ball at the end of her cot. She jerked and kicked when he reached for her, looking like a small child afraid of a shot. Ed Collins and the baker, Migliozzi, ran over and jumped on Kong’s back. Even skinny little Montelle raced in and swatted at the giant, slapping ineffective punches into any open space he could find.
Charlie stalked forward, her fist tight and slick with sweat. The nailhead dug into her palm. She sidestepped a rolling Migliozzi as he was pitched off the terrorist’s back and flung across the floor. Cots banged and crashed together in the melee, further tangling the approach with obstacles. Charlie picked her way through the debris. She dodged a pair of captives who were escaping the area. Screams and shouts from the others faded into the background of her perception.
Kong shrugged off Ed Collins and swatted down him as easily as knocking over a toddler. The big man ignored Montelle, who rained feathery blows on the monster’s back. Like King Kong after Fay Wray, the Samoan zeroed in on Melissa and caught her by the ankle. He dragged her across the floor.
“Not me! Not me!” the blond woman screamed. Wet eyes rolled in her beet-red face. They landed on Charlie, who was sliding up from the giant’s left rear. “Her! She’s the one,” Melissa wailed. “She has a weapon! Take her!”
Kong glanced around. Saw her raised fist.
Damn you, Melissa. Charlie rushed in and punched at the man’s piggy left eye. Her fist smacked Kong’s palm. It felt like hitting a side of beef. The protruding nail stabbed deep. The man took no notice. His meaty hand snapped closed on her bunched fist like a Venus flytrap. Warm blood—his, she hoped—seeped around her knuckles.
Kong’s lips curled up on one side. “I like you,” he rumbled. “You’ve got spirit.”
He squeezed. The bones in her hand cracked like small twigs. The pain registered as cold white heat firing through her fist, followed by a blast of agony that ripped a scream from her guts. Charlie’s eyes blurred, and her legs gave out. When the giant released her, she fell at his feet, all the fight crushed out of her. Her hand burned with pain. She cradled it against her body.
Kong’s voice came from a distant shore. “Now, you, little bitch—I don’t like a tattletale. C’mon, honey. We’re gonna go play.”
Charlie was vaguely aware of Melissa howling as she was dragged past. The woman clawed at the floor, digging grooves in the soft wood with her fingertips. A wet, bloody bit of metal fell by Charlie’s knee. Her nail. Tossed back to her in a show of contempt.
The door slammed shut, and the lock clattered home.
Charlie rocked her broken hand and blocked out the gabbling of the other hostages. Salty wet tears splattered the floor. Hers, as it turned out.
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
1800 Local
Yeager returned from his reconnaissance, following the sound of the waterfall back to the pool where he had left the others. It was the same pond where he and Pettigrew had spent a very short night. He had left the older men to rest and rehydrate while he scouted a way up the ridge that didn’t involve a suicidal assault on a defended position. The three men were resting in the shade of a massive tree. Osterchuk sat up as he approached, and Pettigrew toed Pyle awake.
“Okay, Marines. I found a way up.” He settled on a rock next to the pool, dropping like a sandbag. He stuck his face in the water and drank his fill. He shook off the water and used the front of his shirt as a towel. “Let me draw y’all a picture.”
With a stick as a pencil and a patch of wet sand as his drawing board, Yeager diagrammed the camp layout. He drew five rectangles like the spread fingers of a hand. “Here are the four barracks and a smaller hut. They all face a central clearing. From here”—Yeager poked a hole in the middle of the clearing, where the palm of the spread hand would be—“starting left and reading clockwise, barracks A is at the nine o’clock. B is at straight-up twelve. The hostages are in this one. A guard post is in between those two, next to a big tree. Next up, we have this little building—call it C—here at the one o’clock, but it’s set back from the others. At the two o’clock position is barracks D, and E is at the three o’clock position. Clear so far?”
“Sounds like an IKEA project,” Osterchuk said.
“Wait until we start inserting tabs into slots,” Pettigrew said with a chuckle.
“On the south side of the camp is a creek.” Yeager drew a wiggly line. If the buildings were a spread hand, the line would slash the wrist. Well above the fingertips, he drew a second line. “On the north side is the ridge. I suspect the creek is the source of the waterfall here—it must bend north at some point. Off to the east of the waterfall, away from the camp, there’s a game trail that goes up to the top. We’ll climb that and make our approach by following the stream from the top of the waterfall back toward the camp.” Yeager looked at each man in turn, making eye contact. Weighing. Assessing. If there were any doubts, the older men hid them well. “Okay, then,” he said. “Here is where it gets tricky.”